A Woman Rice Planter offers insights into a broad spectrum of Southern life after the Civil War. As an account of a woman s struggle for survival and dignity in a distinctly male-dominated society it contributes significantly to women s history. For observers of the black experience it affords opinionated but nonetheless revealing views about African American folklife. It presents a rich portrait of a distinctive place--the South Carolina Low Country--in a troubled and generally undocumented time a portrait made all the more vivid by the fine pen-and-ink sketches of Charleston artist Alice R. Huger Smith.